Menu

Local Favorite: Snowball Stands

There is nothing like a snowball on a hot summer day. The craving for a sweet icy treat topped with marshmallow sauce is a craving that nothing but a snowball can satisfy. No ice cream, popsicle, or sno-cone will do the trick. Only a mound of sugary crushed ice, with a brain freeze in every bite, topped with marshmallow sauce that sticks to the corners of your lips no matter how daintily you try to slurp it.

Have you ever had a snowball?

When I was growing up, nearly every day of the summer we visited the snowball stand. I remember waking up early to play cards, then eating cereal and watching TV (Full House or Saved By The Bell, I’m sure), playing outside until it got so hot we couldn’t bear it, then coming inside for lunch. After the obligatory thirty minutes of rest, my sister and I would wrap ourselves in swimsuits and oversized towels and then tiptoe across the back deck, burning our toes on the hot wood surface, then splash into the cool blue pool in our backyard. We would swim until our fingers resembled prunes and our eyes stung with melted sunblock and chlorine, and then we would walk to the snowball stand, pockets heavy with quarters borrowed from (but rarely returned to) our parents’ coin jar. On some days, the outside temperature was so high that when we saw the snowball stand in the distance, we weren’t sure if it was a mirage or the real thing.

I recently discovered that some of my friends in Virginia had never had a snowball. An internet search and a query to my facebook friends yielded disappointing results: are there really no viable snowball stands in Richmond?* In a city where the weather gets oppressively hot almost every day of the summer (think 90 by noon), there has to be a snowball stand to provide some sort of relief! As I said earlier, a snowball craving can be satisfied by nothing but a real snowball and I had been craving a snowball for nearly two years. I had a feeling that Kyle had been craving one his whole life without knowing it. So we visited my childhood snowball stand, 200 miles away, and got Kyle his first taste.

I know exactly where it is!! But, I’m afraid there are no snowballs (I don’t think), only sno-cones 😦 it’s on Sliding Hill road, get off of 95 on the Atlee exit, proceed through the first intersection and it’s in the shopping center on your left. Here’s the second issue, it has no known hours, most of the time it’s closed and occasionally it’s open, but with no regularity (typical country business operations practices). I would love to come along though so let me know when you go!!

Lauren! Just checking out your blog and had to comment on this post. I MISS the snowball stand! I’ve never found anything like it on the west coast (nothing with such an impressive amount of flavors, like egg custard, mmm) Miss you!